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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is GameCI?​

GameCI is a community of game developers aiming to automate the process of creating and maintaining games. It is also a set of tools related to CI/CD process that can be used by game developers.

What is GameCI's goal?​

  • Making Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery more accessible to game developers
  • Providing tools and resources to automate game development and deployment process
  • Having fun doing it

What does CI stand for in GameCI?​

Did you know that .ci in game.ci is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Côte d'Ivoire? In our case, it is also the abbreviation of Continuous Integration.

What is CI/CD?​

Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery is a process that allows developers to build and deploy software without having to manually intervene each time there is a change. Learn more on Wikipedia: CI/CD

What game engines are supported?​

Right now, GameCI only supports Unity. We see a bright future with GameCI's integration with other game engines or simply put, building a community of people who are interested in automation around game development.

Recommendations for other game engines​

For Unreal Engine, we recommend you have a look at unrealcontainers from our friend Adam Rehn.

For Godot, there are multiple options available. We know about abarichello/godot-ci from Artur Barichello.

For MonoGame, there is this amazing guide on Lean MonoGame - Automate Release from Jean-David Moisan (Apostolique)

Why use GameCI for Unity?​

We want developers to concentrate on their game development, not on the stuff of CI/CD. Having a CI/CD pipeline setup can benefit developers, but also artists, designers, Q/A and testers by providing game builds faster and automatically. We have a large community of developers who are using GameCI on a daily basis. We have community driven documentation to help you get started. Everything we provide is free and open source.

How does GameCI for Unity work?​

We provide ready to use docker images published to docker hub with Unity pre-installed and ready to run. This is especially useful for CI/CD pipelines where you don't want to waste time installing Unity each time. The main goal is to use these images as part of a pipeline you own. You can find a list of all supported Unity versions here. We have a documentation website providing complete examples of working pipelines for building, testing and publishing games using major CI/CD platforms such as Github Actions, Gitlab CI and CircleCI.

We rely on the community to help us maintain and improve the images.

Which CI/CD platforms are supported by GameCI for Unity?​

Right now, we have official support for the following CI/CD platforms:

Can I use GameCI for Unity with <insert other CI/CD service here>?​

This question is often ask for these CI/CD services:

If the service you want to use supports Docker (the above list does), then chances are it will work, but we might not have official support for it. Your best bet is to translate the GameCI gitlab-ci unity example project to your desired CI/CD service provider. Caution: if this is your first time using GameCI, you might want to try officially supported services first. The easiest one is Github Actions.

We are also working on a GameCI for Unity CLI which will make it easier to integrate with any CI/CD service. See our Roadmap v3.0.0.

Azure devOps​

You might also want to have a look at Unity Tools for Azure DevOps

Which Unity versions are supported?​

You can find all supported Unity versions here.

What Unity build targets are supported?​

You can find a list of succeeding pipelines for supported build targets in game-ci/unity-actions's ReadMe.

We have linux and windows based docker images to support as many build targets as possible. This includes the following build targets:

  • WebGL
  • Windows Mono
  • Linux Mono
  • macOS Mono
  • Windows IL2CPP
  • Linux IL2CPP
  • macOS IL2CPP
  • Android
  • iOS
  • Universal Windows Platform
  • AppleTV

You can find a list of build targets on Unity's website: Unity Build Targets

Do you support Unity IL2CPP builds?​

Yes, we do, but there are limitations. See Docker images limited IL2CPP support

Do you have macOS based docker images for Unity?​

No, we don't as it is currently not possible to build macos based images. If this is something you are interested in, have a look at macOS Containers initiative.

Do I need a mac to build for iOS?​

Yes, but not for all steps. You will only need a mac for building the generated Xcode project. Unity on linux can generate an xcode project.

Do you have docker images for alpha and beta versions of Unity?​

No, you can learn why by looking at the following issue: game-ci/docker - Support alpha and beta versions of Unity #50

Unity just released a new version, do you have a docker image for it?​

Most likely yes. We have automated pipelines watching every 15 minutes for new releases of Unity. Jobs are then created on github to build and push the docker images to docker hub. You can find the status of the images on the supported Unity versions page.

How does Unity activation work?​

The machine-id​

Unity has several activation methods, but they all share the same concept. Unity uses the machine-id to identify the user. This is usually unique per machine. On linux, the machine-id is located here:

  • /etc/machine-id
  • /var/lib/dbus/machine-id

Using a different machine-id will cause Unity to require a new activation.

To make it easier to use GameCI, we hardcoded the machine-id in all the docker images we publish, see Ubuntu's base Dockerfile.

This makes it easier to upgrade from one version of Unity to another as you will not need to re-activate.

I'm having troubles with Unity activation, what should I do?​

Have a look at the Have a look at the troubleshooting / common issues page.

Can I use a free Unity license to build my project?​

Yes

Can I use a Unity Pro serial to build my project?​

Yes

Can I run multiple builds in parallel using Unity?​

Yes, but have a look at Limitations: Concurrent builds on Windows and MacOS

How much does it cost to use GameCI for Unity?​

GameCI is free and open source software. Depending on the CI/CD service you use, you can pay for build minutes but you can also use your own machines to build and test your project.

Most CI/CD service providers offer a free tier with free build minutes for private projects. If you are building an open source project, it's often all free. ❤️

Github Actions​

Gitlab CI​

CircleCI​

Is GameCI free?​

Yes, GameCI is free and will always be free. The software we develop is open source and under the MIT license.

I have an issue when using GameCI, how can I get in touch with you?​

First you should look at the documentation and the troubleshooting / common issues page. You can also search in issues of related project on github.com/game-ci/ or gitlab.com/game-ci/. If you still have problems, you can open an issue on the related project. Still unsure? You can visit us on our discord server.

Why is it so long to get support?​

We are a small community of developers who are trying to make the world a better place. We are not doing this for the money and no one is being paid for the support. This is all a community effort to end up with games that are less buggy ;). Don't hold your breath and be nice with people helping you. ❤️

Do you offer premium support?​

We don't offer premium support. We do offer free support for the community as a best-effort.

I have too much money, and I like your projects, how can I help?​

We have an opencollective page where you can donate. The donations are used to pay for the costs of the infrastructure, domains and the servers (which we kept to a very reasonable price, thanks to all the free services for open source projects). We might also use the money to pay for improving our visuals or anything that could help us become a better community. It is also possible that we send gifts to major contributors, who knows? ❤️

Do you have a roadmap?​

Yes, see our Roadmap v3.0.0.

Who made GameCI?​

GameCI is a collaborative effort. We are a community of developers who are passionate about good practice and automation. You can find a list of our contributors on github.com/game-ci/ in each project.

The core maintainers of GameCI are: